Photos were fake, so why the delay?

By Michael Smith and Neil Tweedie

12:00AM BST 13 May 2004

The Government is expected to say today that the Daily Mirror's photographs of troops apparently abusing Iraqi prisoners are fake. Adam Ingram, the Armed Forces minister, is due to make the announcement in a Commons defence debate.

It was delayed until today in what appears to be an attempt to divert media attention from the controversy over when the Government knew about allegations of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.

An investigation by the Royal Military Police found that the photographs were taken in the back of an Army lorry in Britain. The Government has known since at least Monday that the photographs, allegedly of members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, were not genuine.

The Army's Special Investigations Branch was able to identify the Bedford four-ton lorry in which the photos were taken from its canvas covering. It was based at Kimberley Barracks, Preston, throughout the war.

The photographs are believed to have been "mocked up" by members of the TA Lancastrian and Cumbrian Volunteers.